I have only just found this forum and so thought maybe I should introduce myself a bit better. Male, 52 years old, married, live in Suffolk, have lead an interesting and varied career and have had problems with my bladder off and on all my life but more particularly for the last 26 years after a rugby injury.

I certainly wet the bed as child as I remember our nanny putting me into terry nappies and waterproof pants aged 5 – or at least I remember being very embarrassed by a relative seeing and commenting on the fact that I was still in nappies!

I guess I grew out of it and then when I was about 11/12 and at prep school it started to happen again very occasionally, which meant for crinkly waterproof sheets and the occasional report to matron. She was very understanding. I remember being mortified my first year at public school when it happened again. Aged 14 I changed schools again and was now back at home. This time though it was more complicated as it was not a subject I felt able to discuss and would go to great lengths to hide the incidents of wet beds and my attempts at protection, which comprised using a bath towel as a terry nappy and plastic carrier bags with the corners loped off as waterproof pants and a bin liner on the mattress…..Not wholly successfully it has to be said! Then I think I discovered that a small local pharmacy sold ‘Sandra’ waterproof pants, which were a good step up! Washing and drying was a logistical challenge, with the space behind the radiator in my bedroom much in evidence.

Again I seemed to grow out of it. I had the occasional problem in my late teens and early twenties, more often than not if I had a few too many beers. So resorted to using disposable baby nappies under waterproof pants.

Then aged 26 I fractured my neck playing rugby and that was when things really changed. Over about a year I started to wet the bed increasingly often until it was every night. I can’t for the life of me remember how, as we did not have the internet then, but I found out the details of an incontinence clinic and there met a fantastically helpful and understanding nurse continence adviser. Visits to specialists followed and many things/drugs/appliances were tried, but in the end the damage had indeed been done and so it was then that I started to wear adult all-in-one disposables. How products have evolved over the subsequent 26 years! Though quite why we still have to cope with leaks is a little irritating.

Now it just became a way of life and in the intervening years Daddy’s ‘special pants’ were accepted as the norm. Then about 6 years ago I noticed a worsening with increased day-time problems often coinciding with when my back was painful (and at times of high anxiety too). Two years ago it was pretty much adult nappies 24/7. By now I knew that my back was a real mess thanks to many years of active participation in various sports and quite a few bouncing around in armoured vehicles! Spinal surgery eventually followed a raft of other treatments. But my back was well and truly knackered and the resultant lack of bladder control a consequence.

So anyway, here we are now, and it is Tena Maxi 24/7. Offices are my worst environment as I do not look disabled but need the extra space to change wet nappies. Followed a close second by NHS hospitals who a) did not stock the TENA products so I had to supply my own and b) were not very discreet when it came to helping me change or for that matter particularly prompt in attending to my request for help with wet pads/nappies and beds.

Other than that I just get on and manage it.

It is great to have this forum. Thank you.